Ahmed Owedat also found soldiers had thrown his TVs, fridge, and computers from upstairs windows and slashed furniture

Harriet Sherwood in Burij, The Guardian, 7 August 2014

When Ahmed Owedat returned to his home 18 days after Israeli
soldiers took it over in the middle of the night, he was greeted with an
overpowering stench.

He picked through the wreckage of his
possessions thrown from upstairs windows to find that the departing
troops had left a number of messages. One came from piles of faeces on
his tiled floors and in wastepaper baskets, and a plastic bottle filled
with urine.

Some of the graffiti Ahmed Owedat found on returning to his home in the town of Burij: photo by Harriet Sherwood, 6 August 2014

If
that was not clear enough, the words "Fuck Hamas" had been carved into a
concrete wall in the staircase. "Burn Gaza down" and "Good Arab = dead
Arab" were engraved on a coffee table. The star of David was drawn in
blue in a bedroom.

Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers in a house where they'd stayed during the ground invasion: photo via Hazem Balousha on twitter, 6 August 2014

"I
have scrubbed the floors three times today and three times yesterday,"
said Owedat, 52, as he surveyed the damage, which included four
televisions, a fridge, a clock and several computers tossed out of
windows, shredded curtains and slashed soft furnishings.

A handful
of plastic chairs had their seats ripped open, through which the
occupying soldiers defecated, he said. Gaping holes had been blown in
four ground-floor external walls, and there was damage from shelling to
the top floor. There, in the living room, diagrams had been drawn on the
walls, showing buildings and palm trees in the village, with figures
that Owedat thought represented their distance from the border.

"I
have no money to fix this," he said, claiming that his life savings of
$10,000 (£6,000) were missing from his apartment.

But at least it could
be repaired, he acknowledged, gesturing through the broken glass at a
wasteland stretching towards the Israel-Gaza border 3km away. "Every house between here and there has been destroyed."

His
family of 13 fled their home after seeing troops and tanks advancing at
1am on 20 July, two days into the Israeli ground invasion. Several
times, during the short-lived ceasefires in the following two weeks,
they attempted to return only to find Israeli troops in their home
instructing them to keep away.

Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers in a house where they'd stayed during the ground invasion: photo via Hazem Balousha on twitter, 6 August 2014

The Israel Defence Forces did not respond to a request for comment.

For the first time families of killed people in Gaza are able to have mourning tents today, during the 72 hours ceasefire: photo by Hazem Balousha via twitter, 5 August 2014

Half
an hour's drive north, a similar picture was found at Beit Hanoun
girls' school, taken over by the IDF following the ground operation.
Broken glass and rubble littered the floors and stairs. Tables and desks
were covered in the abandoned detritus of an occupying army: hardened
bread rolls, empty tins of hummus, desiccated olives, cans of energy
drinks, bullet casings. Flies buzzed around the rotting food.

Here
too, said the school's caretaker, Fayez, who didn't want to give his
full name, soldiers had defecated in bins and cardboard boxes, and
urinated in water bottles. "You will be fucked here" and "Don't forget
it's time for you to die" were chalked in English on blackboards.

Here,
Hamas had struck back. After the troops pulled out, counter-graffiti
was sprayed on the walls, referring to Hamas's militant wing, Qassam
brigades. "Qassam's army will crush you -- dogs" and "Israel will be
defeated".

The 1,250 pupils at the school will, it is hoped, never
see either set of venomous messages. Workers began the marathon cleanup
operation this week but, said Fayez, "it will take at least a month to
fix". The academic year is due to begin in a little over two weeks.

Some of devastation I have seen today in Khuzaa village east of Khanyounis: photo by Hazem Balousha via twitter, 4 August 2014

Some time back to the war ...

Defense Minister Ehud Barak commented that the Israeli army is the 'most moral army in the world...'” (3/09)

The phrase has covered a lot of mileage.

"IDF spokesperson Seymour Chutzpah meanwhile said the IDF was the most moral army in the world..." (7/14)

The
verbs are interesting. "Pointed out" would betray the arrogance.
"Claimed" would be too impartial. "Admitted" might be the best choice.

"The Israeli Defense Minister conceded today that the IDF is 'the most
moral army in the world...'"

Sources
for these photos are Guardian
correspondent Harriet Sherwood and the internationally recognized
Palestinian Journalist Hazem Balousha, whose photos and reports appear
regularly in The Guardian, Al-Monitor, and DW World, among other places;
he holds a BA in Journalism, an MA in International Relations, and is
the founder of the Gaza City-based Palestinian Institute for
Communication and Development.

Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers on a coffee table in a house where they'd stayed during the ground invasion: photo via Hazem Balousha on twitter, 6 August 2014

6 comments:

Bibi and his boys are nothing more than playground bullies. No doubt the soldiers were told to head out and have fun. I can see no rationale for what has happened in terms of real politik or any sense of consequence. Plain pleasure in the hurt of the other. They just want to "cut them up silly ways", as they used to say at the old Alma Mater. Monstrous children.

The behavior has to be called out for what it is: depraved, disgusting, immoral.

Earlier this week I watched a film made some time before the war of border guards who utterly humiliated a bus of Palestinian travelers, forcing them at gunpoint to take everything out of their suitcases, then forcing them to stand in terrible weather while demanding the buses go and leave all of them behind. One of the soldiers said to the journalist filming it was "a little fun" they were having and he had absolutely no concern for any consequence, saying he'd do the same even if the head of state were on site. The video made me sick. The were soldiers in their '20s. Who teaches that such behavior is acceptable?

Hamas sickens me as well, holding a parade in which the children suffering so much in this war are wrapped in jihadist headbands or banners and given (toy) guns.

Yes, we reap what we sow. And what the world is reaping now leaves me in despair.

Despair, like hope, suggests the presence of humanity, soul and conscience. These things are like tiny twinkling beacons, almost impossible to make out through the darkness and confusion of history as it happens, now.